In hindsight, maybe the first snap of tonight’s game was a sign of the weirdness to come.
LSU center Braelin Moore got rolled up on the first play from scrimmage, left with an ankle sprain and the 101st season inside Tiger Stadium was off and running. The good news is #3 LSU (2-0) beat Louisiana Tech 23 to 7. The bad news is they didn’t look impressive at all doing so.
Was LSU bad or just sloppy? Probably a little bit of both.
LSU’s first drive ended unceremoniously when Garrett Nussmeir was intercepted
by Michael Richard. Nuss had Barion Brown streaking all alone down the field, under threw him, and the ball deflected off of one Bulldog defender and into the arms of another. No big deal, that was just one of those dumb, flukey college football plays that you see every single Saturday, right? Well…
LSU’s next drive was somewhat productive, but that drive didn’t result in points either. An eight-play, 25-yard drive resulted in Damien Ramos missing a 51-yard field goal. It didn’t miss by much, but a miss is a miss.
The third drive is when LSU started to look like LSU. Despite starting at its own 2 yard line, LSU methodically marched 98 yards down the field, popped a 48-yard run by Zavion Thomas, and eventually Nussmeier found Nic Anderson in the end zone to put LSU on the board.
LSU would score once again, but the drive stalled out in a way that felt like a throwback to last season: get inside the opponents’ 10, run the ball unsuccessfully, and throw incomplete passes on second and third down to bring up a short field goal.
Whatever second half adjustments we were hoping to see offensively never came, and LSU struggled to 13 points including a Ramos field goal from inside the five yard line. Just like we saw last season, the Tigers might have a problem punching the ball in when they get into the red zone.
LSU finished the night with 128 rushing yards—155 excluding three Nussmeir sacks—but boy was it not impressive. Caden Durham couldn’t get anything going (13 carries for 29 yards), and Ju’Juan Johnson and Kaleb Jackson combined for two total yards. True freshman running back Harlem Berry had an impressive 43 yard run to get the Tigers to Tech’s six yard line, but LSU wasn’t able to finish off the drive with a touchdown.
More troubling for LSU is how costly this game might prove to be from a health perspective. Braelin Moore didn’t return to the game after hurting his ankle and was wearing street clothes and a walking boot. To make matters worse, Trey’Dez Green went down awkwardly in the second half and was in a knee brace and on crutches; defensive end Jimari Butler also got banged up toward the end of the game.
At least the LSU defense came to play. The Tigers limited Louisiana Tech to 154 total yards of offense, and at one point the Bulldogs had more penalty yardage than offense; Tech was 3-13 on third down, and had it not been for a dropped interception by Ashton Stamps, LSU would have pitched a shutout.
It wasn’t pretty but it was a win. That’s more than LSU’s next opponent, Florida, can say after all.
